


Pancakes

by catieconqueso



Series: One Shots from the Pancakesverse [1]
Category: Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Brief Mention of Suicide, Canon-Typical Violence, Depression, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Like super light, V just needs a hug, broken relationship, exes but not really, light spoilers for the game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:13:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28266684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catieconqueso/pseuds/catieconqueso
Summary: He was Prometheus bound in chains, his guilt and that fucking chip in his head the eagles that tore at him until all that remained were scraps of skin and bone. She wouldn’t care, wouldn’t complain as she picked up what was left of him. She would pick up each jagged piece till she was as bloody as he was.
Relationships: Male V/Original Character, Male V/Original Female Character
Series: One Shots from the Pancakesverse [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2081301
Comments: 2
Kudos: 29





	Pancakes

He shouldn’t be there. Not after everything—the botched job, fights, the guilt, the long span of days without so much as a phone call, or the message sitting untouched since it had blipped across his optics three days ago. _Come home._ Two words, simple, straightforward, no strings attached.

But there were strings, his strings, looping tight around his limbs like iron binds. Prometheus bound in chains, his guilt and that fucking chip in his head the eagles that tore at him until all that remained were scraps of skin and bone. She wouldn’t care though, wouldn’t complain as she picked up what was left of him.

Each piece left was the shape of a person he had failed—Evelyn, Takemura, hell even Barry from downstairs. Biggest and most jagged pieces, they were shaped like Jackie, T-Bug, her. She would pick up each jagged piece till she was as bloody as he was, till they were both coated in it. She was used to blood though, no stranger to the feel of it drying on her skin. _Just an occupational hazard_ , she would answer when she would return home with crimson staining her clothing. _Work for a ripper doc, after all_ , she would add with a smile as sickly sweet as Nicola and twice as fake. 

_Come home._ Getting there had been easy, automatic. Park near the corner of that small bodega that had real strawberries in the summer, and then sixteen steps to the vendor that sold those spicy noodles they had shared in bed when he would stumble home strung out on hormone suppressors and stims barely able to string two sentences together. One hundred and twenty-five steps to the elevator, the one where he had carried her, smiling brighter than he had ever smiled before, towards the apartment they had bought together. Another thirty and he was at her door, hand frozen halfway to knocking, vomit burning his already aching throat.

There was blood on his fingers, on his lips, on the control for the elevator where his lungs had brought it up in a series of racking coughs that made his head pound and his teeth ache. He needed sleep, needed a drink, needed to curl up under the spray of a hot shower until he would pretend nothing else existed outside that small apartment. Needed to shove his iron between his chapped lips and pray that pulling the trigger was enough to end his agony.

She would be there, no need for the iron. She’d tell him he was going to be fine and in the end, she would pick up the pieces of him while wearing her sweet smile and blood stained jeans. And for a brief moment, he could pretend everything was okay.

Last time he had seen her was at the ofrenda when she offered him a small smile when he had stumbled over the first few lines of _For Whom the Bell Tolls_ , words choked around the tears that had threatened to stain the collar of his dress shirt. She had bought him that one for his first day at ‘Saka. For luck, she had whispered into the skin just below his jaw. Always said it looked good on him. He thought it looked even better on her.

The door was unlocked, her door was always unlocked. Even after that first break in, when he had stumbled out of their shared bed naked to the sight of a strung out cyberpsycho carrying off their TV, she kept it unlocked. A doctor’s door should always be open, she had reasoned when he returned again to find their apartment door still unlocked. Open for the string of addicts, joy toys, and dolls that came to see her, each treated with gentle care and sent on their way with bags packed tightly with hypos and pills. More often than not came home to find a collection of strangers in their small kitchen and an unlocked door. And more often than not he would remind her to lock the door. After all this time. she still hadn’t listened.

It was dark in the apartment, the faint smell of her shampoo and pancakes lingering in the air even though the time on his optics flashed 3:15 AM. She must have just come in, clothes abandoned in front of the bathroom, shoes kicked to rest under the TV console. He made sure to lock the door behind him.

Pancakes meant a rough day, their shared symbol of words of comfort neither of them wanted to say. She lost a patient on the table—chocolate chip. Jenkins threw him under the bus for a major corpo fuck up—cinnamon topped with Realfruit. It was their way of comforting each other when nothing else would suffice, cracks in each of their skin patched together by bits of flour and sugar syrup.

The first time had been when he was six and his old man had bit it on the streets of Watson. Scavs—Mama Welles said, him sitting at their cramped kitchen table after school. Scavs had held up a corner store and his beat cop dad just had to play the hero. _Your padre…V…he didn’t make it._ She made blueberry pancakes for him and Jackie and explained that everyone dies while he shoved globs of syrup soaked pancakes into his mouth. And when his mom kicked it two years later from brain cancer, she again made pancakes, plain, topped with Realfruit and cream.

The next time he had them was with her, after the first time she spent the night at his place. He’d awoken to the smell of burning sugar and the sight of her wearing nothing but a bright smile and his t-shirt. _Made pancakes_ , she told him, holding out a plate stacked full. _Looked like you needed them._

And again when she had tiptoed into his apartment with shaking hands and tear stained cheeks, blood drying beneath her nails. _Lost a patient…a little girl_ , she had choked out around heavy sobs and shaking breaths. He had stumbled awkwardly through the recipe, could hit a target from yards away, but he knew fuck all about cracking an egg. She had ended up helping in the end, had taken his hand so gentle and sweet and showed him how. They had stayed awake for hours sharing a plate of pancakes and words of comfort until he awoke with her tucked against him fast asleep.

She made them each time he needed them, two years after they had moved in together when poor intel had gotten Frost, a barely green street kid from the 6th Street gang, killed. An easy op, he had told Jackie with the instruction to hire someone who knew the Biotechnica warehouse in Heywood. And it was an easy op. Grab the agent, get out, simple as apple pie. In the end, he screwed up, gotten sloppy and the kid ended up with a bullet three inches deep in his skull.

No amount of hormone suppressors or boosters could help him that day. He’d vomited up what noodles were left in his stomach in the elevator and had slumped pale and shaking at the door of their apartment, Frost’s blood and brains still drying on his shirt. She had held him as he cried and shook on the hard floor of their kitchen, and when he finally stopped, she made them chocolate chip pancakes to share over their pile of jagged pieces.

“V?” She emerged from the bathroom, purple curls still wet and matted to her pale shoulders, delicate features knit in concern. Only wearing a towel with the door unlocked, christ, she really was too trusting. “What are you doing here?”

“Got your message.” His voice wavered, hands shook, and V knew he was moments away from shattering into a million jagged pieces. “Gotta start locking your doors, Nyx.”

“You’re bleeding,” she murmured, stepping forward to swipe the blood from his chin. Sugar sweet, too sweet. _Sweet girls like her don’t end up with bad boys like you, calbrone_ , Jackie had told him at their wedding.

_No, they don’t._

Dressed up in a suit that cost more than his current apartment, her in a dress that cost enough eddies to feed all of Watson and then some they had danced, laughed, kissed under the shining lights of Night City. Had been happy on the surface, but below, Jackie’s word rang in the hollow void where his heart had been replaced by wires and circuits. She was too good for him and he had never stopped believing it was true.

“S’nothing.” He pushed her away. He was always pushing her away. “Needed some painkillers. Had nowhere else to go. Vic’s clinic’s closed Tuesdays night,” he slurred. He was slurring, words thick and heavy as his legs which buckled beneath him. The floor was as cold as he remembered, ache in his joints enough to distract him from the pounding in his skull.

“Vincent,” Nyx soothed, hands cool against his too warm skin, soft, caring. Then she leaned back, fixing him with a disapproving pout, the same one that would still his teasing, would stop his hand when it reached to sneak a strawberry from the fridge. His mom had the same look, kind of one that froze your limbs with just a knowing glance. “You haven’t been taking the beta blockers.”

“Made my head feel funny,” he groaned, leaning into her touch. The ache hadn’t disappeared, just dulled to a manageable throbbing by the feel of her skin against his. “Didn’t want to take too many.”

“That's the point, you gonk.” The following tap on his forehead was ever so gentle. The brush of his sweat slicked hair from his forehead even more so. “Suppose to help with your extra passenger.”

His extra passenger had been uncharacteristically silent since he had disappeared in the elevator to avoid the spray of blood that had poured from his lips. “Some help,” V groused, settling back onto his haunches once the room had stopped spinning. “Still see him everywhere.”

“That's cause you aren’t taking the blockers.” Her hands were gone from his forehead and he let out an actual whine at the loss of contact. “Take this,” Nyx instructed, doctorly sternness tinged with sugar sweet concern, “it’ll help with the pain.” The hypo she pressed to his chest must have weighed a ton, he thought as he fingers struggled to clutch it.

“Can’t…help…” His words were lost to a groan of pain, racking coughs, the sharp ringing in his ears, the way his skull felt like it would be ripped in two. Everything went fuzzy, he went fuzzy. Dipped out of the world til nothing existed save the silent black void that crept up around him. Then it came back in a roar, the soft sunlight that filtered into the apartment, the smell of her coconut shampoo, and the dull buzz in his skull.

He was warm, and for the first time in what felt like years he felt safe. She was singing, some pop song on the radio, the sound floating around him to settle on his skin like a blanket. Everything ached when he finally sat up, optics whiting out for a second when the world finally right itself. “Hey,” he croaked, voice harsh, raspy from sleep.

“You’re awake,” she answered spinning on her heels to face him, smile bright and mixing bowl clutched between her small fingers. Wearing nothing but one of his old shirts and a smile. He could pretend he was back in that first morning, no Johnny, no chip, no shit jobs or trail of dead bodies left in his wake. He was back in that first morning, drinking in the sight of her pale legs, and deciding there and then that he was going to marry her.

“Yeah…feel like shit though.” Mixing bowl abandoned, she was beside him, small fingers gripping his chin to study his face. “Think I’m dying.”

“You’re not dying,” she teased, smile bright, too bright and cracked around the edges. She had been there, heard that in his head was a bomb. Had smiled sadly when he reached out to grip her hand, had flinched when his finger stroked over her wedding ring. Still on her finger after everything he had done, after everything he had said. 

“No concussion, that’s good.” Examine finished, her fingers lingered on his jaw, thumb rasping along stubble too grown out to be on purpose. “Hit your head pretty hard when you went down. Good thing it's so thick or you would have been in trouble.”

“Didn’t know you had a wife.” Johnny blinked into existence just over her shoulder face pinched in clear annoyance. Disgusted concern, like he was pissed at the universe for making him feel anything but rage towards the world around him. V had seen it in the elevator, a quick flicker of emotion before he glitched back into his head. His rage flared in V’s gut and he quickly pushed it back down, wanting nothing more than to cling desperately to the comforting warmth that had settled over him.

“Didn’t know it mattered. Doesn’t though, not together anymore,” he shot back, gaze drifting past the downy puff of purple curls to settle on the spot where Johnny picked at the discarded mixing bowl. Chipped and pink with little skulls dotting the rim. The set had been a wedding gift from Mama Wells. _To make a life together_.

She had made that final plate of pancakes with that bowl. Set them down in front of him and said she couldn’t do it anymore, couldn’t watch him slowly kill himself. Some life they had made together, a hot burst of happiness that burned sharp and quick until it fizzled out into his life shoved hastily in a bag and one last plate of pancakes.

“Sweet girl,” Johnny mused, blinking out and reappearing just over her shoulder, “too sweet for Night City.” She was murmuring something and pushing a pair of pills past his lips with the order to swallow.

“For your head,” she answered. “And drink this.” The water was cool on his burning throat, healing the persistent ache that lingered there. That first swallow of water and her proud smile acted as panacea to soothe away the weariness in his bones.

“Thanks,” he rasped, voice less harsh, edges less jagged. “Sorry for barging in.” He stood, or at least tried to, his legs jelly, his head spinning.

“Don’t get up just yet, samurai.” She caught him when he stumbled. She always caught him when he stumbled. “Your cybernetics are still resetting. Gonna be for a while.”

She helped him settle back against the bed, under the blankets with a sweet kiss to his fevered head and a promise to check on him soon.

“Nyx?” Her name was harsh on his lips, bitter where it had once been sweet. He had said her name in so many ways, full throated happiness, soft whispers of love, coarse anger, fiery growls to nothing but the ceiling above, but never in desperation as he did now. “Stay with me?”

“Yeah okay,” she murmured, slipping beneath the blankets to curl around him, “only until you fall back asleep.” Body small against him, warm, comforting, familiar.

“Missed this,” he answered, ignoring the pinched expression Johnny shot his way. Hated when he was soft, and when V could stand again, he’d hear all about how soft he was getting in these last few weeks.

“Me too.” Her words were whispered, muffled by his bare chest. “Missed you too, samurai. Didn’t think you got my message.”

One shift of his hand and she was sprawled against him, scent of coconut settling on his skin like a warm blanket. “Thought I bit the big one without saying goodbye?” He tried to clamp down the hot spike of grief before she could see it. It didn’t matter, she always saw right through him, reflected the grief back. “Wouldn’t do that to you, Nyx.”

“Then why does this feel like goodbye?”

“It ain’t. Not yet,” he answered, face pressed to her soft curls to hide the tears that choked his voice, dampened the hair against her cheek. “Didn’t know where else to go.”

“Door’s always open.” Her hand was gentle as it traced along the ridges of his spine. Each swipe of hand brought the threat of sleep closer, and he didn’t want to go just yet.

“M’sorry, Nyx.”

“For what?” Her fingers stilled, warmth gone from him as she pulled back from his grasp. “Haven’t done anything wrong, except bleed on my clean floors.”

“For everything,” V whispered, hand tangling with hers. “For fucking everything up. Fucked up our marriage. Fucked up my job. Fucked up and got Jackie killed.”

“None of that was your fault.” Her lips pressed to his chest. V let his eyes drift shut. Let himself pretend that he was back before everything had gone to shit.

Had stumbled home from a night of getting his ass chewed out by Jenkins. She would be there, soft smile and softer body waiting for him with sweet whispers of love and comfort. Would hold him after it all, after he finished using her, breaking her, sweetness never faltering after it all. Put him back together without complaint. He would do that same for her, always for her.

She did the same now, bloody fingers catching on all his jagged edges until the last piece slotted into place. When he awoke again it was to the sweet smell of syrup and her soft singing. Warmth all around him, over him, could just pretend everything was okay, could pretend that he was whole again.

“Morning, samurai. Made pancakes, looked like you needed them.”


End file.
